From the “Elf King” notebook: Two by Samuel Beckett

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Samuel Beckett. Photo: John Minihan.

And then of course there are still commonplace entries in the Elf King notebook of good old text. Below two excerpts from Beckett, particularly germane to the circumstances of the play:

Oh I know I too shall cease and be as when I was not yet, only all over instead of in store, that makes me happy, often now my murmur falters and dies and I weep for happiness as I go along and for love of this old earth that has carried me so long and whose uncomplainingness will soon be mine.

“From an Abandoned Work” (1957)

They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more.

Waiting for Godot (1953)

3 thoughts on “From the “Elf King” notebook: Two by Samuel Beckett”

  1. I’ve always been rather fond of this: “My life, my life, now I speak of it as of something over, now as of a joke which still goes on, and it is neither, for at the same time it is over and it goes on, and is there any tense for that? Watch wound and buried by the watchmaker, before he dies, whose ruined works will one day speak of God, to the worms.”